Olivia Pope Blushes! Kerry Washington Says She Can’t Keep A Secret

Olivia Pope, fixer of the world, mistress to the president, daughter of some kind of CIA honcho, does not seem like the type to blush easily. Which is why I was so amused when Scandal star Kerry Washington hid behind her purse adorably when all I did was compliment her phenomenally expressive face. That scene in Django Unchained when Jamie Foxx walks in and surprises her? An epic poem in a single look. So, I wondered, is there any emotion that’s actually hard for Washington to portray?

“You know what’s really hard for me? In my personal life, not as a character, when I have a secret or a surprise for someone, and I can’t tell them, it’s SO painful,” she told me at the Paley Center’s “She’s Making Media” event in New York on Wednesday. “I’m the person who’s always trying to hint at surprises, because I just want to share them so much, so I’m not good at that.”

Says the woman who got married in secret earlier this year to San Francisco 49er Nnamdi Asomugha. Also, how did she even handle not telling us what happens next to Olivia and Fitz?

“Well, luckily I hadn’t read the script for the first episode, so for a long time people had been like, ‘What happens?’ I’m like, ‘I don’t know,’ ” she explained. “But once we shot the first episode, it’s been very hard to talk to people, because I want to tell you all how amazing it is!”

As Scandal enters its third season tonight at 10 pm ET, it’s more buzzed about than ever. Clearly, we want more Olivia, all the time. But does Kerry think about when she wants to stop this ride?

“I don’t have an end date in mind,” she said. “I don’t know why we can’t have a geriatric Olivia Pope in like a walker and cute Gucci pumps. There’s no end for this woman.”